Serial electronic chip thief sentenced for attempted theft

Taoyuan, Jan. 4 (CNA) The Taoyuan District Court has sentenced a man to six months in prison for attempting to steal unidentified items from Delta Electronics Inc., his third sentencing on a similar charge in the last five months.

The sentence, which can be commuted to a fine, came after the man, surnamed Lin (林), was given a suspended sentence in September 2024 for stealing chips from Delta Electronics and a 30-month sentence in October 2024 for the theft of chips from Quanta Computer.

The latest verdict can be appealed.

According to the indictment filed by the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office, the 31-year-old man broke into Delta Electronics' Pingzhen plant in Taoyuan on May 9, 2024, but escaped after being spotted by employees.

The company reported the incident to the police, after which the man was indicted for attempted theft, prosecutors said.

Local media reported that the man told police he entered the Delta Electronics plant without any particular target in mind, and was looking for something to steal when Delta's employees saw him.

The court's ruling said the man and Delta Electronics agreed to a NT$50,000 (US$1,518) settlement, but the man did not pay the amount and therefore did not gain the company's forgiveness.

It was unclear if the court case would have been dropped had the agreed upon amount been paid.

The ruling also noted that this was not the first time Lin had been involved in similar behavior.

He was sentenced to 17 months in prison, suspended for three years, in September 2024 for stealing 9,980 chips from Delta Electronics between September and October 2023 when he was working as an engineer at the company.

As part of that case, the man reached a NT$1.4 million settlement with Delta Electronics.

Lin also stole chips and memory storage devices on nine occasions from Quanta Computer, where he previously worked, between February and June 2023, the ruling said. The stolen items were worth a combined NT$9.23 million.

He was then sentenced in October 2024 to 30 months in prison in that case for theft and document forgery, the district court ruling said.